The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [88]
It may be noticed here that both the rejected and the replacement passages make it very clear that the events of the story of Beren and Tinúviel took place before the Battle of Unnumbered Tears; see pp. 65–6.
(ii) The Battle of Tasarinan
It is said at the beginning of the present tale (p. 70) that it ‘tells of very ancient days of that folk [Men] before the Battle of Tasarinan when first Men entered the dark vales of Hisilómë’.
On the face of it this offers an extreme contradiction, since it is said many times that Men were shut in Hisilómë at the time of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, and the Tale of Turambar takes place—must take place—after that battle. The solution lies, however, in an ambiguity in the sentence just cited. My father did not mean that this was a tale of Men in ancient days of that folk before they entered Hisilómë he meant ‘this is a tale of the ancient days when Men first entered Hisilómë—long before the Battle of Tasarinan’.
Tasarinan is the Land of Willows, Nan-tathren in The Silmarillion; the early word-lists or dictionaries give the ‘Elvish’ form tasarin ‘willow’ and the Gnomish tathrin.* The Battle of Tasarinan took place long after, in the course of the great expedition from Valinor for the release of the enslaved Noldoli in the Great Lands. See pp. 219–20.
(iii) The geography of the Tale of Turambar
The passage describing the route of the Orcs who captured Túrin (p. 77) seems to give further support to the idea that ‘the mountains fencing Hisilórnë from the Lands Beyond were continuous with those above Angband’ (p. 62); for it is said here that the Orcs ‘followed ever the line of dark hills toward those regions where they rise high and gloomy and their heads are shrouded in black vapours’, and ‘there are they called Angorodin or the Iron Mountains, for beneath the roots of their northernmost fastnesses lies Angband’.
The site of the caves of the Rodothlim, agreeing well with what is said later of Nargothrond, has been discussed already (p. 123), as has the topography of the Silver Bowl and the ravine in which Turambar slew Glorund, in relation to the later Teiglin, Celebros, and Nen Girith (pp. 132–3). There are in addition some indications in the tale of how the caves of the Rodothlim related to Tinwelint’s kingdom and to the land where the Woodmen dwelt. It is said (p. 95) that ‘the dwellings of the Rodothlim were not utterly distant from the realm of Tinwelint, albeit far enough’ while the Woodmen dwelt ‘in lands that were not utterly far from Sirion or the grassy hills of that river’s middle course’ (p. 91), which may be taken to agree tolerably with the situation of the Forest of Brethil. The region where they lived is said in the same passage to have been ‘very far away many a journey beyond the river of the Rodothlim’, and Glorund’s wrath was great when he heard of ‘a brave folk of Men that dwelt far beyond the river’ (p. 103); this also can be accommodated quite well to the developed geographical conception—Brethil was indeed a good distance beyond the river (Narog) for one setting out from Nargothrond.
My strong impression is that though the geography of the west of the Great Lands may have been still fairly vague, it already had, in many important respects, the same essential structure and relations as those seen on the map accompanying The Silmarillion.
(iv) The influence of the Valar
As in the Tale of Tinúviel (see p. 68), in the Tale of Turambar also there are several references to the power of the Valar in the affairs of Men and